And an application for a block of up to nine storeys – on the site of the old Hyde Housing Association offices in Davigdor Road – has been submitted by Withdean Commercial, which was set up by an expanding Hove business, Imex Exhibitions.

Imex wants to move to bigger offices. The company said that it had outgrown its current base at the Agora building in Ellen Street, Hove.

The planning application for flats and offices is expected to go before councillors by the summer.

Hove Gold campaigners said that they were concerned that most of the flats in the Artisan building, on the corner of Davigdor Road and Lyon Close, had not been sold by the developer, Crest Nicholson.

The block was bought by Southern Housing Association for people to buy and rent but the flats were described as ‘unaffordable’ by people at the meeting.

Sam Goult, of Lyndhurst Road, described it as the ‘elephant in the room’.

He said: “We want it to be a success as it has been built and we don’t want it to be a while elephant.

“It is more housing units which are unaffordable to those that need them and unwanted by those who can afford them.

“It is mainly empty, it is too tall and the wrong type of housing. We don’t want to repeat those mistakes for the five blocks that want planning permission.”

Mr Goult said that Hove Gold was not a NIMBY (not in my back yard) group but wanted to see homes for families in the area.

Alison Dean, of Colbourne Road, said that she left laughing after going to Artisan with her son to look at the flats.

She said that even with shared ownership, an income of £45,000 was necessary for a one-bedroom flat.

She said: “There are more than 50 blocks of flats in Goldsmid now. It’s time to take a stand and say enough is enough and this needs to be handled sensitively.

“Yes, we need housing and our ward needs to take responsibility but such a development needs to be terraces and townhouses – not tower blocks.

“Terraces and houses make more communities than tower blocks.”

Hove Gold is forming a team to create a neighbourhood plan in an effort to halt the number of tall buildings.

The group also wants to encourage people to comment again on amended plans for the Lyon Close scheme as the plan for one of the blocks is now for eight storeys instead of ten.

Comments on the Crest Nicholson scheme can be made by visiting planningapps.brighton-hove.gov.uk and searching for application number BH2018/01738.

The Imex scheme is application number BH2018/02926.

The RKO scheme to build flats and a hotel is application number BH2019/00127.

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